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COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday that he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress - but never had sex with them. The governor said he "never crossed the ultimate line" with anyone but Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentine at the center of a scandal that has derailed his once-promising political career.

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur, on trips to "blow off steam" with male friends.

Sanford also admitted he saw Chapur more times than previously disclosed, including what was to be a farewell meeting in New York chaperoned by a spiritual adviser soon after his wife found out about the affair.

He described five meetings with Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up.

The governor said he met Chapur in Punta Del Este, Uruguay, in 2001 after his final term in Congress and before his first term as governor. He said the two struck up an e-mail correspondence after meeting on a dance floor - a chance encounter during which he counseled her into the night about her failing marriage.

For the next seven-plus years, Sanford said, the two exchanged messages, sometimes sporadically.

They met in New York two more times in 2008: two nights in Manhattan in September and three nights in the Hamptons in November. Each time, Sanford claims he flew coach, paid for it himself, paid for the hotels in cash and told his staff he was reachable via cell phone.

"At that point I was very careful, everything was paid for in cash," Sanford said. "And you won't find a credit card record."

In early 2009, after Jenny Sanford discovered the affair, the couple went into counseling. She has told The Associated Press that he asked her several times to visit the mistress and she refused.

But the governor claims he wanted to end the affair in person and, with his wife's permission, went to New York with a "trusted spiritual adviser" serving as chaperone. The three went to church and dinner together and parted ways the same night.

But he visited Chapur again in Argentina on June 18, the trip that brought the whole affair to light.